


the star to every wandering bark

by steepedinwords



Category: Code Name Verity Series - Elizabeth Wein
Genre: Author is not a historian, Canon Bisexual Character, Developing Relationship, Espionage, F/F, Guns, Julie-typical language, Kissing, Mention of period-typical homophobia, Mutual Pining, Pining, Possibly dodgy historical details, Smoking, The pining is more subtle on Julie's side but it's there, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension, World War II, both guns and smoking are brief mentions but tagging just in case, two of them in fact
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-18
Updated: 2019-12-18
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:07:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,125
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21840979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steepedinwords/pseuds/steepedinwords
Summary: Julie and Maddie, engaging in spy shenanigans together. Takes place in a vaguely pre-canon timeline. A Yuletide gift for akamarykate.
Relationships: Julie Beaufort-Stuart/Maddie Brodatt
Comments: 20
Kudos: 32
Collections: Yuletide 2019





	the star to every wandering bark

**Author's Note:**

  * For [akamarykate](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akamarykate/gifts).



> A Yuletide gift for akamarykate. I hope you enjoy! Thank you for the request - it gave me the excuse to reread the book and listen to the audiobook of Code Name Verity for the dozenth time.
> 
> Title is from Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds."
> 
> TW for mention of period-typical homophobia and a brief occurence of non-graphic violence.

It’s a bruise to her heart, watching Julie flirt.

Maddie sits straight-backed in a chair in the darkened hallway, eyes on the couple in the bright hotel dining room. Julie picked a good time for the rendezvous - too early for the supper crowd, so the room is quite empty. There’s a smattering of other diners, but they’re at tables far away from Julie and her contact, who look quite cosy, sharing dinner in a window seat. Maddie is supposed to be Julie’s driver. She’s trying not to fidget, falling into the familiar pattern of worry - what if this goes badly? What if the suspected Nazi spy with whom Julie’s meeting works out that she isn’t Eva Seiler? What if someone notices that Maddie isn’t a driver and has no business being here on this uncomfortable chair in the hall? The man reading a paper over there has glanced her way several times. Maybe he’s noticed something odd about her, maybe her posture or her hair signal _military_ , maybe, maybe. Maddie’s stomach nags at her; she’s regretting being part of this plan. But Julie needed the help.

She sneezes again, trying to stifle it in her handkerchief. Drat this cold, anyway. It settled in her head a week ago, stuffing up her nose and making her eyes water, and worst of all, affecting her ears. Lucky she worked that out while accompanying someone else on a flight last week, not while flying alone. The change in air pressure had her curled into a ball of misery in the copilot’s seat, trying not to weep outright from the awful pain in her ears. Back on the ground, a medic had pronounced her unfit to fly until her cold is gone. And a day or two later, Julie had blown into Manchester needing Maddie’s help. They were short a driver, and she knew Maddie could drive a car - would she come? Maddie, bored to tears, had jumped at the chance, not considering the possibility of a situation like this. Waiting, watching, nervy. Unfamiliar territory and just plain fear - of letting Julie down, of doing something wrong.

Julie hasn’t been able to say much about the job, but Maddie has gathered enough. The man Julie is meeting with right now is suspected to be a spy for the Nazis, originally from France. There’s apparently a chance that he’s not particularly loyal to his employers, and Julie’s meant to be scoping him out as a possible asset for the British side. Gabriel, his name is. Charming blighter. Maddie watches him smile and smile at Julie, and wishes with all her heart she were somewhere else.

She’s seen Julie flirt before. “It’s a game,” she told Maddie once, and she is so very good at it. She turns on the charm, acts just the right amount of fascinated and fascinating. Maddie’s seen this before, but it’s never really invoked this unfamiliar feeling in her chest - ugly and petty and - _jealous._

What right does she have to jealousy?

Julie has this chap dead to rights, anyway. Eating out of her hand already, it looks like. He’s leaning over the table, gesturing expansively, very French. She looks like she’s having the time of her life, smiling at him as if he’s the only person in the world. Her blue gown catches the dim electric lights of the dining room; somehow she manages to make something Maddie knows for a fact is years old look chic and fashionable. Her lipstick is red tonight, not the beige Eva Seiler wears sometimes for a more severe look. Smoke curls in the air from both of their cigarettes. The iteration of Eva that Julie is playing tonight is more of a _femme fatale_ than the times she acts as an interrogator. It is fascinating, watching her slip effortlessly between personalities in order to draw out the right reactions from her audience. Between the faint German accent and the looks, there’s no way her contact won’t be taken in. Maddie almost feels sorry for the man. Almost, but not quite. The way he’s looking at Julie...

Maddie’s heart twists, and she looks away. The other driver turns a page in his paper, rustling. In the dining room, Julie’s laughter bubbles up, bright and effervescent.

She has no right to jealousy.

\---------------

Back in the hotel room they’re sharing, Maddie feels quiet, heavy with exhaustion. Probably just this dratted head cold still making itself known. Julie hasn’t settled down since they got in, flitting around the room, picking things up and putting them down again, humming a tune Maddie vaguely recognises as “Auld Lang Syne.” She’s halfway through taking off her makeup, wiping it away along with Eva’s posture and mannerisms. Maddie feels small, pensive, a deep well of stillness beside her friend’s restlessness.

Julie has a sweet voice; she’ll hum for a little, then break into a few words, then go back to humming. It’s intimate in a way Maddie hasn’t seen before - she rarely gets Julie all to herself like this, vulnerable, her armour down. Julie pauses in front of Maddie, extending her hands. “Dance with me?”

“How do you still have the energy?” Maddie protests. But she lets herself be pulled into a swing dance step for a few bars. The flannel of Julie’s over-large men’s pyjama jacket is soft under her hands, and Julie’s waist and bicep warm underneath it. Maddie flushes and messes up a step, stepping back. “Sorry!”

Julie grins at her, bright and mischievous, and lets her go. Maddie feels like she’s buzzing out of her skin, can feel heat building up to the very tips of her ears. Distraction. She needs a distraction.

“Did it go well tonight, then?”

A tiny frown furrows Julie’s forehead. “You know I can’t - ”

“I don’t need to know what he said, or anything!” Maddie says hastily. “Just - it’s going all right? I kept worrying - ”

Julie reaches up and takes Maddie’s shoulders, gives her a little shake, and Maddie’s hands come up to cover hers. “Everything’s going to plan,” she says. Then softer, “Thank you for coming with me, Maddie. I know this isn’t your cup of tea.”

She reaches up and presses a kiss to Maddie’s cheek before going to wash her face. Maddie’s left staring stupidly in the dresser mirror, seeing Julie flitting away again as if she hasn’t just thrown Maddie’s world off kilter with yet another casual touch. In the mirror, Maddie’s eyes are puffy and swollen from her cold, and there’s a bloody lipstick print on her cheek. She can still feel the imprint of Julie’s mouth. Instead of wiping it away, she turns out the light, crawls into bed, but sleep is a long time arriving.

\-----

“Bloody fucking _hell,_ ” Julie spits. “Have you seen my shoes?”

It’s the wee hours of the morning, and someone’s just come by to hammer on their door. Apparently there’s a fire alarm, and everyone is evacuating the building. Maddie stumbles, gritty-eyed and blinking from the unexpected wake-up call, down the stairs after Julie. It’s not full dark in the street, but the only light is from the moon, throwing everything into pale light and silvery shadow. A good night for flying, Maddie thinks wistfully. She pulls her coat tighter around herself against the chill. Her thoughts have that odd, sharp-edged tiredness that comes from being up very late, and she can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong somehow. Perhaps it’s just that being out on the street in this small knot of strangers after an alarm feels incredibly exposed, compared to the usual air-raid sirens and bunkers and familiar faces. Still, the hairs on the back of her neck are standing up, like someone’s watching them. She doesn’t see anyone, but anxiety still nags at her stomach.

Beside her, Julie makes a soft startled noise, and her hand flies towards Maddie’s face. Maddie remembers about the lipstick stain on her cheek just as the rough wool of Julie’s coat sleeve scrubs it away, and then they’re staring at each other, eyes wide in the moonlight. Around them, the other hotel residents are carrying on sleepy conversations, or grumbling, or in the case of one woman, snoring where she’s fallen asleep on her friend’s shoulder. No one seems to have noticed their little moment of vulnerability, and the anxiety in Maddie’s chest loosens a little bit.

It turns out to be a false alarm - someone pulled the alarm bell. Once they have the “all clear” and are allowed back into the hotel to go back to their room, Maddie is so sleepy again that she nearly forgets to mention the odd feeling from earlier. Julie, yawning and swallowed up in her enormous coat, with her sleep-rumpled curls covered by a scarf, nods seriously. 

“We’ll have to be more careful,” she says, and Maddie isn’t sure whether Julie’s talking about the operation or the lipstick.  
\-----------

The next few days are no less anxious. Julie tracks Gabriel around the city, Maddie driving her to drop-off points and picking her up hours later. Both of them are full of pent-up nervous energy, but Maddie privately thinks she might have it worse - she has no outlet for it. The waiting is awful. She sits behind the wheel of the car, trying not to bite her fingernails. She completes the pair of gloves she’d been knitting, finishes a book, occasionally buys a cup of tea in a cafe. No sugar or milk to be had here, but the caffeine helps a little with the growing tiredness. Sometimes she naps, startling into wakefulness at every small sound from the streets around her. She’s smoked more in the last two days than she ever remembers doing before.

She misses the strong oily taste of airfield tea. She misses home, and being behind the controls of a plane. But Julie needs her, so she stays.

Julie is tired, but thriving on the chase. Every time Maddie picks her up, she’s buzzing with energy despite the growing violet circles under her eyes. Gabriel apparently has a working partner - a man by the name of Henry, stolidly English to all appearances, but Julie’s pretty sure he might actually be German. He’s thrown a wrench into Julie’s plans: he’s less talkative than Gabriel, more openly distrustful of Julie. He’s also keeping her from getting Gabriel alone. Julie doesn’t say much more. The fact that she’s shared this much with Maddie is startling, given her usual strict adherence to the SOE’s no-idle-talking policies. Maddie gets the sense that Julie is a little frustrated that her usual methods of charm-or-seduce aren’t working as well as she’d like. 

Maddie sees the man once, and identifies him with a sinking feeling as the other driver who had been in the hotel lobby for that first meeting. Is his suspicion of Julie because of her? 

Nights are short. Julie’s focused. Maddie is tired. And every time they see each other, there are those absent little touche. A handclasp, a blonde head leaned on Maddie’s shoulder as she drives, fingers at the small of her back as they move around each other in the small shared space of their hotel room. Maddie tells herself it’s just Julie being Julie, the way she’s always interacted with the world. Small, thoughtless gestures of affection that probably mean much less to her than they do to Maddie. But every time, Maddie is conflicted, caught between exhilaration and panic, not knowing how to respond, if she’s meant to respond. Maybe it’s the close quarters, but she’s _noticing_ it so much more than ever before, and it’s maddening.

At least her cold is nearly gone. Perhaps all that tea is helping.

\----------

Another date, another restaurant. Julie’s getting close, she says. Apparently Gabriel likes the finer things in life, so that means the two of them are going dancing, and she’s hoping that means time without Henry looming within earshot. Maddie helps her dress. The blue gown again. Scarlet lipstick, with a little Vaseline glossed over it afterwards. Powder and cream, like armour to cover up the exhaustion in Julie’s face.

“Gabriel noticed you,” Julie says. “He saw us, the night of the fire.”

Maddie’s face flames, remembering the lipstick, the moment of vulnerability they’d accidentally let slip before the world. Her fingers fumble on the long row of buttons down the back of the dress; she tries to focus on them, but her eyes are drawn to Julie’s creamy skin above the back neckline of the gown, which isn’t helping. At all.

“I don’t think he was the one to ring the alarm,” Julie goes on thoughtfully. “I’d bet it was Henry. But Gabriel saw us both. He asked why I was sharing a room with my driver, and - about the lipstick. He asked if…” She cuts herself off. “It doesn’t matter.”

Maddie can hear what Julie isn’t saying.

“I don’t think he’s bought my cover story, any more than I’ve bought his. But he sounded - he sounded hopeful, not nasty about it.”

“He would,” Maddie muttered. “He’s lying, that’s his job.” 

Julie’s cornflower-blue eyes meet hers in the mirror, smiling slightly. “It’s my job too. And I’m very good at telling when people are lying. He wasn’t.”

She slides in her earrings as Maddie finishes with the buttons. “I’ve found out a few things about him - about his past, in France. Someone I work with heard a few things. I can use that.”

_It. That._ They’re not naming this thing that lies between them, that’s following Gabriel the reluctant spy around. It’s too difficult to put words to, somehow. But they both know what they’re talking about. 

Maddie hopes it doesn’t come to blackmailing the man on who he chooses to sleep with. It seems unkind, when the same unspoken thing could hurt both of their own careers as well.

“Could you do my stockings?” Julie asks, putting down the powder on the dresser.

Maddie kneels behind her on the dingy carpet, carefully traces a line of black pencil up the back of each of Julie’s bare legs to look like a seam. Fake stockings, all the rage for years now, with silk and nylon so scarce. The curve of Julie’s calf is warm under Maddie’s fingers, and she wills her hand not to shake. Between Julie’s warmth, their proximity, and the thoughts swirling in the wake of the half-conversation they just had, Maddie’s heartbeat is pulsing in her throat. Focusing on drawing a straight line calms her a little, until she looks up to see Julie looking down at her. That impish three-cornered smirk, and _oh_. Maddie feels a little dizzy.

She’s in love with her best friend, and she doesn’t have the first idea what to do about it.  
\----------  
The hotel is still and peaceful when they return from the dance in the early morning hours. Julie finished out the evening in a state of keyed-up excitement, but five minutes after getting into the car she’d crashed down from the high, going silent with exhaustion. It’s icy cold outside; they light the gas fire and Julie sits on the sofa with her bare feet tucked under her, staring into the flames. She only sits like a lady when it suits her, Maddie’s found - when they’re alone, Julie sits sideways, or cross-legged, or perched on the arm of a chair - as if she is tired of being proper when others are looking, and she can relax around Maddie. 

They’re sharing a flask of whiskey, and the sharp burn of it aches in Maddie’s throat.

Maddie herself feels unconscionably tired. She spent most of the evening standing about, except for ten minutes where she tried to distract Gabriel’s sidekick from Julie by pretending something was wrong with the car and asking for Henry’s help. Her heart was in her throat the whole time he spent checking under the car bonnet, but he didn’t seem to suspect anything when he found the disconnected spark plugs hanging loose. That had bought them enough time for Julie and Gabriel to talk a little without fear of being overheard. She hopes it was enough for Julie to set up their next meeting. 

She gives in to the physical pull of Julie’s small form, like gravity, and rests her head on Julie’s pyjama-clad shoulder. 

“I’m sure now,” Julie says quietly, after a while. Her shoulder shifts under Maddie’s ear as she raises her arm to take another sip from the flask; Maddie rouses and listens.

“Gabriel is… like me. He confirmed it. That’s why he ended up here.” Julie sounds close to tears. “He says he _is_ French - he went to university in Berlin, like I was planning to do. But he had a lover. A man.” She rubs the bridge of her nose. “He was hearing things, about what they might be doing to people like him, and he wanted to get away, and he got himself into this position and he doesn’t even want to be here, Maddie. He just wants to be a person.”

Maddie sits up. “Are you going to use that, like you said?”

Julie hugs her knees. There’s a tear sparkling at the corner of her eye, and she wipes it away impatiently. “Shouldn’t I? That’s my job, Maddie. That’s my fucking job, I signed up for this.”

“You could…” Maddie hesitates. “Just be honest with him. You’re supposed to get him to our side, right? This could work. And - and then it’s leverage, not blackmail.”

“You say that like it’s better,” Julie says ruefully. She runs a hand through her rumpled curls, staring into the curling blue flames of the gas jet. Her accent thickens with emotion. “And what should I tell him? Och aye man, I’m _odd_ like you are, and no one’s killed me for it here?”

Maddie knows it’s different, in the SOE. People don’t talk about it in the regular forces, or in the ATA. True, there are coded words if you know what to listen for, but the RAF doesn’t like having homosexuals in its ranks. Julie’s mentioned before that the SOE is less strict. They take all kinds, don’t care where you’re from or what you’ve done as long as you get the job done. But it’s still a risk, telling people.

There’s a small, ridiculous flare of hope growing in her chest, and she takes a deep breath. 

“You could try that. And you could say - you could tell him I am too.”

Julie turns, slowly, to face Maddie, and there’s a question in her face Maddie can’t answer with words. So she takes Julie’s cold hand in hers and kisses her knuckles, and Julie, normally so ready with deflections and laughter and nonsense, leans forward and kisses Maddie back. And the world is off kilter again, spinning away from its axis and making Maddie dizzy, but somehow everything is perfectly right at the same time.

\--------------

Maddie wakes up a few hours later, sprawled into the arm of the sofa with Julie curled up trustfully on top of her like a cat. For the first time in days, she doesn’t feel anxious, all the live wires of her nerves grounded by the gentle, reassuring weight on her, and she falls asleep again in the pool of moonlight from the window.

\-------  
The operation draws near its end quickly after that night. The plan is as follows:  
1\. Julie will plan a rendezvous with Gabriel and Henry.  
2\. Maddie will secretly sabotage Henry’s car.  
3\. While Henry is trying to fix his car, Maddie will drive to pick up Julie and Gabriel.  
4\. Julie, alone with Gabriel, will convince him to turn himself in.  
5\. Gabriel’s partner will be none the wiser and continue to work with him.

The first part of the plan goes perfectly. Maddie, remembering the time in Kent when Julie sabotaged her own bicycle with a hairpin, uses a couple of nails to pierce two of the car’s tyres, so that by the time Henry needs to drive to pick up Gabriel in the morning, they’ll be well and truly flat.

They pick up Gabriel at a cafe as per the plan, and go on without Henry. Gabriel is full of apologies for Henry’s absence, Julie full of reassurances that it is perfectly fine. 

The secondary location is a ten-minute drive away from the cafe, outside of the city limits. Maddie parks the car and goes to stand watch outside, while Julie and Gabriel stay in the backseat, talking earnestly. Gabriel looks as anxious as Maddie feels, but there’s a dawning hope in his face as Julie speaks to him, both of them leaning forward earnestly. Maddie leans against a lamppost and waits for Julie’s signal that she’s finished.

That’s when it all goes to hell. Gabriel, glancing in Maddie’s direction over Julie’s shoulder, makes a sudden aborted gesture of warning, his eyes widening. Maddie turns to see what he’s pointing at and just manages to dodge a heavy blow aimed at her head. Henry is right behind her, and he has a gun. Part of her brain is screaming in panic, and part of it cooly noting danger, response, and possible action. 

Henry was obviously trying to pistol-whip her so as not to alert Julie and Gabriel with a gunshot. He’s trying to shove her aside now, aiming towards the car. _Julie._ Maddie claws for his arm, but he’s too tall to reach. Seized with fury, she stomps hard on the instep of his foot, brings a knee up sharply between his legs. Henry howls, drops his hands protectively, and she makes another grab for the gun. _Stupid, stupid, this is so stupid._ He’s still gripping it tightly, but she manages to get her fingers around the trigger, aims it downwards, and pulls.

It’s a lucky shot. Henry screams and goes down, knee buckling under him with the force of the bullet. Maddie wrestles the gun away from him and throws it as hard as she can. Then Gabriel and Julie are running up, Gabriel pinning Henry to the ground, Julie pulling out her own gun, and then it’s all over and Maddie is shaking with adrenaline and throwing up on the side of the road.

But they’re safe. Julie’s safe.

\-----------

Arrests, and debriefing, and reports, and then finally the two of them are alone again in the car on the way to Julie’s drop-off point. From there, she and Maddie are to part ways again - Maddie back to Manchester for the last few days of her leave, Julie to her next assignment. 

It’s quiet as they drive. A gentle winter rain started up sometime while they were closeted in the interrogation rooms, and the sound of water hissing under the wheels and the windshield wipers’ rhythm are soothing to Maddie’s still-frayed nerves. She stopped shaking hours ago; more than anything, she just feels tired and drained now. Julie has been quiet, but her hand’s been clasped in Maddie’s for the whole drive, except for when the gears need shifting.

(“You nearly took a bullet for me,” she said, after Henry and Gabriel had both been turned in and they could breathe again. “Don’t ever do that again.” Maddie’s never seen her so pale.)

“Where do we go from here?” Julie asks. They both know she’s not talking about the road. Maddie glances over, and Julie’s anxious eyes meet hers.

“You said once that flirting’s a game,” she says, hating the way the words sound, aching and small. “That you like pretending. Was that - ” She lets her tone edge into questioning, not daring to ask outright.

“No,” Julie says, with feeling. “No, I wasn’t playing games with you. I mean it. I meant everything.”

“Really?” It shouldn’t be this hard to believe, but the way Julie’s offering her heart to Maddie - it feels astonishing, unbelievable. Too good to be true.

Julie brushes Maddie’s cheek with her fingers, and the smile on her face is like sunshine, warming Maddie down to her bones. “Really.” She grins. “And - maybe one day, when this is over, we won’t have to leave all the time like this. We could do anything. Go to France, see Paris. No guns, no spying, no nearly getting shot. It’d be very romantic.”

Maddie grins back, and then, because no one is watching and she can, she pulls onto the verge of the country road, parks the car, and kisses Julie. And for a while, there’s just the smell of the winter rain washing over the car, the feel of Julie’s mouth against hers, and the peace of their tiny pocket of the world. And it’s like a flare gun going off inside her chest, this feeling - so incandescently happy that it hurts.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my partner K for thinking of a plot reason Maddie wouldn’t be able to fly, but would still be able to function and to drive a car. Your expertise as a former paramedic really comes in handy for my writing at times like these. (Also thank you for the beta read!)
> 
> According to _Code Name Verity_ , Maddie finds out about the exact nature of Julie’s work as an “interrogator” in April 1943. Julie goes to France in October of that year. So this would take place between those two dates. This story is sort of in the nebulous space between filling in canon and just straight-up being an AU. 
> 
> Germany in the 1940s was not a good place to be queer. Between 1933 and 1944, over 100,000 gay men were arrested; most were sent to regular prison, but between 5,000-15,000 were sent to concentration camps.
> 
> At least one source I found stated that the Special Operations Executive was fine with employing known queer people. And they had several agents who they recruited from the Axis side, so I hope Julie’s mission to “flip” Gabriel is not too implausible.
> 
> There were Nazi spies in England in the early 1940s, but not as many as you might think - only about 25 according to my research. Operation Lena in September 1940 was supposed to “pave the way” for an invasion of Britain, but most of the spies sent via that operation were incompetent and arrested very quickly. (This was apparently due to deliberate sabotage of the operation on the Germans’ side.) I took the liberty of making Gabriel and "Henry" be at least somewhat competent, so hopefully that’s believable.
> 
> The details about makeup are two things I discovered in my research that I really love. Women did draw stockings on each other in lieu of having actual stockings to wear, and since lipstick was mostly matte, people would use Vaseline to make it glossy.
> 
> “Auld Lang Syne” is one of the songs that Julie writes in her papers in Code Name Verity - the verse she quotes there is “We two have paddled in the burn,” but here she’s humming the whole song. On a side note, if you haven’t listened to the audiobook of CNV, Morven Christie sings the songs Julie quotes, and her voice is so lovely and it breaks my heart every time I re-listen to the book.
> 
> Please excuse any historical errors - World War II is not my area of expertise, but I did my best.


End file.
